Behind The Development Of The Famous Shoe Store, The Essence Is Still Sales

The famous shoe store is a typical representative of the outlets model in China's e-commerce, but it is currently undergoing a transformation, trying to dilute or even get rid of the outlets model on which to become a family.

Outlets originated in the United States. Its original meaning is "export, outlet, export". In the business practice of Europe and the United States, outlets have gradually evolved into a retail model, which specifically refers to the sale of famous brand products that are out of season, off the shelf, and out of code. To use more Chinese words to describe it is "inventory clearing".

The famous shoes store in Xiamen grew up in the way of "clearing the inventory" for brands. The name "famous shoes store" is intended to open Brand shoes Warehouse of. It was the 2008 global financial crisis, financial collapse and economic recession that reflected the stagnation of import and export business in foreign trade. The business of Xiamen foreign trade merchant Xu Songmao and his partners is obviously not good.

Xu Songmao, a native of Jinjiang, Fujian Province, graduated from the Department of Physics of Xiamen University in 1983. After working in the Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences for several years, he turned to foreign trade from 1988. By 2008, he led his team to immerse in footwear foreign trade for 20 years, set a record of exporting 20 million pairs of shoes annually, and contracted 78 brands worldwide, It is a well deserved "invisible champion" in the footwear foreign trade industry.

Xu Songmao has been described as "low-key, tough and chivalrous", and he is very friendly. According to the retirement plan, he retired when he was 45 years old in 2008. Years of wealth accumulation has already enabled him to achieve financial freedom. Although foreign trade business is troubled, it does not affect his fundamental, and his brothers are obviously not so relaxed.

In order to help the brothers find a way out, Xu Songmao stopped his retirement plan and led a group of brothers to establish a famous shoe library website. His idea is very simple: if foreign trade cannot be transferred to domestic trade, traditional retail channels will be new online channels without them.

So in December 2008, the famous shoe store launched its own official website and Taobao shop to sell the low-price tail goods of authentic products in the mode of Outlets. Start word-of-mouth marketing from friends around. Without large-scale advertising, the sales of Mingshoestore from 2009 to 2011 were 38.6 million yuan, 120 million yuan, and 200 million yuan, respectively. Mingshoestore ranked among the top three B2C enterprises in China's footwear industry, and in 2011, it received an investment of 15 million dollars from Alibaba.

　　 The growth secret of the famous shoe store: whole network operation

From the appearance, Haoleyai, Letao.com Famous Shoes Warehouse The three B2C websites are not very different. They are all based on shoes and were founded around 2008. The only difference is that since last year, there have been some small changes. Letao is still the purest, only selling shoes; Haole Mall began to expand its category, focusing on shoes, and selling more clothing, outdoor supplies and bags; The famous shoe store is somewhere between the two. Besides shoes, there are only some clothes and bags related to sports brands.

Han Buyong, chief marketing officer of Mingshoestore, pointed out the potential difference between Mingshoestore and other websites: "The biggest difference between Mingshoestore and other footwear B2C websites lies in the source of sales. About 60% of our sales come from big platform sales, rather than the direct official website of Mingshoestore." In a way, Mingshoestore is more like a Taobao brand growing up in Taobao.

This is related to the choice of Taobao Mall stores at the beginning. In addition to Taobao B stores and Taobao C stores, famous shoe stores are also willing to settle in and open stores on large open platforms such as Jingdong Mall, Dangdang.com and No.1 Store. Han Buyong also revealed an unpublished data. At present, the biggest seller of shoes on the Jingdong Mall is the famous shoe store.

Xu Songmao, CEO of the famous shoe store, called this "going to places where there are crowds of people to open stores", which is different from Bi Sheng on Letao.com and Li Shubin on Holemay, who call themselves the Zappos of China. Xu Songmao believes that the vertical category e-commerce like Zappos has little future. The fact that Zappos was sold to Amazon before it was listed just shows the problem.

Therefore, the famous shoe store should not be Zappos, but an open platform for footwear products, or a middleman for centralized supply, focusing on the whole network layout.

"For all major platforms, when you focus on the best brands in a certain category, such as sports category, your entry can complete a category, representing a category. Platforms are eager to do so, and no platform will shut you out; for all brands, as long as you give them the shop, they will reach all major platforms." Xu Songmao explains why both brands and platform vendors are willing to cooperate with the famous shoe store. {page_break}

　　 Business formula for improving profits: self owned brand

Huang Jinjin, also known as Abe, is the vice president of the famous shoe store. He has been engaged in the design of European and American fashion shoes for more than 20 years, and is also Xu Songmao's partner for many years. Every year, he spends most of his time wandering around the world, wandering in the streets of Europe and the United States to get inspiration for design. Since 2011, he has been appointed as the chief designer of the famous shoe brand Coolantivy. This independent brand is the result of careful consideration of the famous shoe store after two years of work in the Outlets model.

Unlike other shoe B2C e-commerce businesses with pure Internet background, the team of Mingshoebank has accumulated more than 20 years of experience in shoe industry, making it familiar with its own brand.

The three enterprises founded by Xu Songmao's team, namely Aide (Fujian) Investment Co., Ltd., Xiamen Aide Shoes Co., Ltd. and Xiamen Aodesheng Shoes Co., Ltd., were once the leading enterprises of ODM for foreign trade shoes in Xiamen and even in China. More than 70 global enterprises have chosen designed shoes from them, and then signed their own trademarks to clinch deals. These three foreign trade enterprises are still operating.

Longevi flagship store was settled in Taobao Mall on July 7, 2011. In the month of opening, its sales exceeded 200000 yuan. On Singles Day, November 11, 2011, the daily sales of Longevity flagship store exceeded 1 million yuan.

In addition, in addition to Lantivy, there are two private brands Skomart and Aderson in the famous shoe library, but the key investment is Lantivy. From last year's sailing challenge to this year's shopping carnival and auto expo, Longevi highly sponsored the above activities to promote its sailing shoes, fashionable shoes and driving shoes and build its fashionable brand image.

"We often say business formula, which means that we can not only do the best for everyone, but also supplement the existing brand deficiencies, meet customer needs with our own brand, and provide customers with value-added and cost-effective services. Although the contribution rate of private brands to profits is not large at present, as a supplement to new profit points, I believe that the contribution rate will become larger and larger in the future." Xu Songmao explains his business formula like this.

Xu Songmao knew very well that the Outlets model, which used to be the starting point, was not a panacea. The famous shoe store has changed from clearing inventory to selling new products, and then developed to establishing the independent brand of Longevity, which means that it doesn't want to be just a porter of the brand. In Xu Songmao's view, whether selling inventory or new products, they are just doing porters for big brands to earn hard money.

If the brand is well done, you will live well, but it is difficult for you to get rich. Therefore, if you want to get better profits, you must rely on your own efforts to create a brand, which will have added value.

　　 The essence of e-commerce is still sales

At the end of 2011, Bi Sheng, CEO of Letao, put forward the pessimistic theory of e-commerce and questioned the development prospect of e-commerce, saying that "I entered the wrong industry" and "e-commerce is a fraud". Bi Sheng described the people who work in e-commerce as "laying bricks". "They jumped to their necks together and began to sink down. When they sank to the end, an investor came to invest some money and floated up. They continued to sink down. The second round of investment stepped up a bit. When the investment did not happen, they died directly."

Xu Songmao can fully understand this: "Bi Sheng is from a pure Internet background. He has no experience in industry before, and e-commerce is a business combining reality with fiction, which is still sales in essence.

To make an analogy, when facing a warehouse full of inventory, Bi Sheng may be sweating because he doesn't know so many shoes What will be done? Can you dispose of it? We will be calm, because we have been trading shoes for more than 20 years. We can see whether each pair of shoes can be sold, whether the customer wants it, and how to deal with it if it cannot be sold. I think this is the biggest difference between us and Bi Sheng based on different backgrounds. "